Moving Truck

Meet Tom and Christine. This year, Tom, his wife Christine, and their three young children moved over 600 miles from Sammamish, Washington to Palo Alto, California.

This was the family’s first professional move together, and Tom’s employer offered him reimbursement for all moving costs.

Continental’s Challenge:

Though this was considered a fairly straight-forward move for us, we wanted to highlight some of the key details that made this move a bit unique.
Pack and store initial items while their home is being staged to sell.
Transport an upright spinet piano and antique chandelier.
Remove a large sectional sofa that would not be taken to California, and does not fit through the doors of the home.

Moving Truck
Boxes

Actions:

With three young children in the home, and Christine handling all the details of the move while Tom left early to start his new job, the Continental team had a lot to do.  Our utmost concern was making sure that everything was handled as smoothly as possible so that Tom and his family did not encounter anymore stress than the moving process already brings.

Boxes

Step one:

We worked with Tom and Christine to help them get their house ready to sell. During the initial estimate appointment, our Certified Moving Consultant walked through the residence with Tim and Christine taking a detailed inventory of what was to be left for staging, and what was to be placed into our storage facility in the upcoming weeks. Ultimately about a third of their goods were taken into storage while the house was staged for sale.  A 6-hour day was scheduled for the crew to come in and pack everything that was to go into storage, and then a following 4-hour day to load, transport, and unload the contents into our storage warehouse.

Moving Truck

Step two:

Roughly one month after having completed the initial pack and load into storage, Tom and Christine’s house had sold, and they were ready for the big move to Palo Alto. Packing the rest of their goods required a single 8-hour day of packing, and an additional 6-hour day to load everything onto the truck. Our crating crew had measured the chandelier’s dimensions during the initial estimate appointment, which allowed our crew to simply bring all necessary materials and crate the chandelier on-site to ensure the perfect fit and protection. Next, to protect the piano as best as possible, the legs were first disassembled and bubble-wrapped separately, and then the entire piano itself was thoroughly pad-wrapped and loaded into the truck.

Furniture

Step three:

This involved a bit of an anomaly as the sectional couch had to be hoisted out of the bonus room balcony on the second floor. To do this, we disassembled the sectional as much as possible and then arranged a top and bottom pulley system with 2 extra-strength ropes. Two crew members were stationed in the bonus room, with the other two in the yard below the balcony. Together they lowered each piece of the sectional from the balcony in about 30 minutes’ time. From there Tom and Christine asked that our crew take the sectional back to our warehouse for it to be donated to our partner donations provider, Seattle Union Gospel Mission. Lastly, the crew was also able to provide Tom and Christine with a tax deductible receipt for their donated sectional.

Contract

Benefits delivered:

Tom and Christine’s move went just as planned. As a result of the in-home estimate, we were able to see, discuss, and plan for each variable that came up during the loading and packing process. We were well prepared with the correct home protection materials such as covering for the doorways, railings, and floors. Though their household goods resided in both our warehouse and their home, everything was efficiently managed and inventoried with our state-of-the-art FastTrack inventory management software. All of Tom and Christine’s goods were delivered and unpacked in Palo Alto just 8 days after loading in Sammamish.